Hey everyone,
Ive done some research on plagiarism in colleges and found that "in a study of 1800 students at nine state universities, statistics show that 70% of the students admitted to cheating on exams, 84% admitted to cheating on written assignments and 52% had copied a few sentences from a website without citing the source." So many students plagiarize, and with the use of technology, its become easier for students to do so. By doing more research I found that there is a new term for plaigiarism called "cyber-plaigiarism" or "patchwork plagiarism," which is the act of "copying and pasting" infromation found online into your work without citing where it came from. Copy and paste is so easy to do, and many students will just change a word or two around and feel comfortable with saying it is their own work.
Plaigiarism has happened so much lately that colleges and professors have had to take measures by using plaigiarism detection software. This helps professors quickly see what was copied and where it was from. This is a great method for colleges, and it takes the long search work out of it.
For the most part, to avoid plagiarism as much as possible, I would just suggest to stay away from the copy and paste method. By reading something, and having to rewrite it, it is easier to rewrite it in a simpler form that would be your own words. Or just learn to cite properly, there are plenty books and websites out there that help you create citations easily. So although technology enables plagiarism, it always enables a way to make easy citations.
Heres some links to where I found all the stastics and other information....
http://orange.eserver.org/issues/5-1/kennedy.html
http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_did_you_know.html
http://www.ehow.com/info_7994370_colleges-doing-fight-plagiarism.html
the copy and paste method is probably one of the biggest allowances of plagiarism
ReplyDeleteGood advice. I was always told, when researching, read the material you need to read and then put it down and rewrite what you remember. To me, it seems like the easiest way to prevent plagiarism, and if you need to reference anything, it should be your own notes. I think that at the basis of it all is to be able to effectively take notes and comprehend information. Some may just have to change the ways in which they do things.
ReplyDeleteAlso, give credit to ANY resource you used in gaining this information can pretty much cover your behind. Because I don't think the biggest problem is using the information, it's not giving credit, where credit is due.
ReplyDeleteTechnology has changed the way people have cheated or plagiarize on papers. It is crazy to think what will happen next.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the most efficient way to avoid plagiarism is to cite your sources effectively.
ReplyDelete